A New Era for the Avengers
by CaptainObvious67
Summary: Hanna Grace and Sheira Bells have been friends for eight years. They have been through thick and thin. But then one day, they're kidnapped by Hydra and experimented on to become Hydra's newest weapon. In the end of it all, Shiera is dead, Shield is preparing for war and Hanna's life will never be the same. (go to DancinAllNight's profile to read Shiera's point of view).
1. Counting Breaths

_One breath. Then two. This slid into three._ It was a nervous habit of mine, counting my breaths. Like someone chewing their fingernails or playing with their hair. I'm sitting on an old, classic, bench in central park, my favorite book of all time resting open in my lap. Wind snaps at my hair and colorful, fall, leaves fly by me as my eyes skim over the words I have read thousands of times. Yet even though I know what's going to happen and what secrets that will soon be spilled from the pages, my heart can't help but beat seconds faster than it should. To have my breathing becoming shallow and soft_. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…_

I read as the main character, Katie, is pushed from a large stained glass window. Falling to her certain death. _Thirty one, thirty two, thirty three, thirty four. _The protagonist grasps onto the ledge, dangling above a huge, deep chasm. The river that ran through the middle of it looked like a piece of blue string. "_Please, Sara it was an accident, Please! I don't want to die!" _She screams as her fingers slip from the ledge, but quickly grabs it with her other hand so tight her knuckles turned white. _Sixty six, sixty seven. _

Sara stands, towering over her and laughs at the fact, that Katie killing her mother was most definitely not an accident and now Sara was going to exact her long awaiting revenge. Then just like that Katie's fingers slip from the cool concrete ledge and—

"Hey Hanna, whatcha reading?" I look up quickly at the perpetrator. The one person that stood between me and the answer to whether or not Katie lives. Even though I knew the solution (spoiler alert-she lives). An eighteen old girl with silky blonde hair and familiar grey eyes that sat behind thick, black glasses stands over me and my shoulders relax. An easy smile comes to my face as I look up at my best friend in the world. "Hi Shiera," I say and she sits beside me, dropping her brown backpack as she takes the worn book from my lap. She laughs as she reads the title and replies "Are you seriously reading this book, _again?_"

I grab my book from her grasp and tuck it safely away in my bag that's lying still next to my feet. "I like it," I say defensively, "and anyways shouldn't you be in school?" She shrugs and says, "I have calculus right about now and I can't stand it! It's like they aren't even trying to make it hard."

That was Shiera Bells for you. The smartest eighteen year old anyone would meet. Let me rephrase that, the smartest _person _and you could count on her to point that fact out to you, every time. But besides her unearthly intelligence, Shiera is sarcastic beyond measure and of course, her favorite topic? Whether or not Taylor Launtner looks better with or without his shirt. Basically the anti me.

I'm smart but nothing close to Shiera and I can be sarcastic when I want to be. But talking about boys? I guess you can say that's not really on my forte. I'm more of that sweet, friendly, and funny kind of girl that everyone feels is too fragile to walk. And, for a long time I thought that's how I would always be seen.

Then one day when I was about twenty two and working the cash register at the beautiful, little bookshop that I just bought. This girl about fourteen comes strolling in, confidence practically glowing off of her. For a while she walked along the book cases carefully assessing each book that took her eye as I read one of my favorite comics, Thanos issue # 1.

All of a sudden the girl comes up to me and said something about the comic I was reading and just like that we became friends. She was the first person to not treat me like I was this porcelain doll that had to be protected all the time. Instead to her, I was this exciting young adult who loved to read. The girl, Shiera, would come to my bookshop every day after school and we would talk about books and all sorts of movies and over the years we ended up doing everything together. It didn't really matter to either one of us that I was eight years older than her. She was like the little sister, I always wanted. To this day, four years since we met, we are still closer than magnets.

I give her a pointed look but she doesn't notice. She's busy picking at a splinter that sticks out from the bench, lost in her thoughts. My hands flinch towards my bag, begging me to go and grab the book that laid waiting for it to be flipped open. But then her head snaps up and she asks, "You want to go get some coffee?" I hesitate. Not even a beat goes by when she continues with, "Come on, I want some, I'll pay." She says the last word in a singsong voice and I can't help but laugh a little.

"What can I get you, girls?" Says a familiar strawberry blonde cashier with cherry red lips. Shiera and I stand, lazily as we stand in front of the girl at our favorite coffee house in all of Manhattan. Shiera speaks first. "Hey, ya, can I have a vanilla blend mocha, extra vanilla creamer, iced, crushed not cubed. Oh! With extra whipped cream." I smile at her incredibly detailed order. "Sure thing sweetie and for you," the girl asks me not looking up as she typed in Shiera's order. I smile slightly at her as a small piece of curly brown hair falls to my face from my messy bun. Tucking the piece of hair behind my ear I say, "Hi. Yes, hot chocolate, extra whipped cream and cinnamon on top, please?"

Shiera stares at me through her glasses, "I thought we talked about this?" She asks and I look at her, confusion most undoubtly surrounding my face. She rolls her eyes as she shakes her head so her blonde hair swishes across her shoulders. "You are not having hot chocolate!" She exclaims, "Yes, I am." I say simply and turn toward the girl behind the register whose waiting patiently, "Hot chocolate please, thank you." She smiles and rings up our orders and Shiera gives her a ten dollar bill. "You're twenty six, Hanna! Its time you order something that is more…grown-upish," She says as we take our drinks and head towards an empty table. But I just shake my head and take a seat. Hot chocolate will be my love, till I'm eighty nine!

"You're so difficult sometimes! It's time to open up to new things." She tells me and I give a soft laugh. "_I'm _the difficult one?" I say as I raise my eyebrows and point an index finger at myself. "Yes, yes you are," She says it halfheartedly and her smile grows to a frown and she stars off into space again. Her eyes glazed over as she silently thinks.

"What's up?" I say finally and narrow my eyes at her. Her head snaps up and asks, "What do you mean?" I look at her like I always do when I know she's not telling me something. Shiera sighs reluctantly and leans back in her chair, her right hand still cupping the bottom of her drink. "Coffee is bitter." She says. To most people it means nothing but to us, it was everything. It was our own little lesson of life.

I lean towards her and reply with the "always" response, "All you need is two packets of sugar." Life is hard and it brings you down but as long as you take the good with the bad, you'll be alright. Shiera takes a drink from her coffee and says, "Well, I didn't actually ditch calculus…"

My ears perk up as I listen, "You see, there was this incident in class a couple weeks back and I may or may not called the teacher an idiot. Then one thing led to another and in the end, I sort of got kicked out." "You what," I exclaim and the door to the coffee house chimes as two men in black suits come walking in. "What? It's not like it's my fault Mr. Simons is a complete idiot." She says and glances over at the men in the suits. A shiver runs up my spine as I watch the men look at us over the tops of their coffees'.

Shiera keeps talking about Mr. Simons and calculus but to be honest I stopped listening. The men kept starring and I feel my stomach churn. "Hanna? Hanna, are you listening to me?" I look back at Shiera her face swelled with worry. "Hanna?" I gulp and the men sit up from their seats from across the empty room. Shiera follows my gaze and I see her shoulders tense.

One of the men with dark brown hair leans forward so both of his hands rest on our table. The other stands behind him, his hand resting on a gun in his holster. The man leaning says, "Now, ladies, I will like to do this without making a scene." "What, WH-who are you?" Shiera says, her voice shaking. The man smiles and my blood runs cold. "I'm Jim and this is my associate Sam." I stare daggers at them both and finally ask through gritted teeth, "What were you talking about?" What was this man, Jim; going to do that he felt he had to tell us to not make a scene? "We work a company called-" Sam cuts Jim off. "Jim. You know our orders." "What does it matter, it's not like it'll matter once they're there." Jim says, his voice covered in a layer of irritation and I clench my fists under the table. "We're from a company. A company called Hydra. And ladies, you're very interesting to our employers." Jim says once his attention turned back to us. "Interesting how?" Shiera responds her voice before soft and shaky but now was hard and restricted. As if she was holding back the urge to yell in his face. I know because I feel the same way.

Jim stands straight and replies, "I'm afraid that's information I can't indulge you in." Sam clears his throat and Jim continues, "Now, are you two going to come peacefully or are we going to have to use force?" Then, without thinking I push out of my chair, Shiera doing the same seconds after. I stare at him, trying to make myself seem tough and ignore the shaking I feel in my hands. "Not until we know, why." Says Shiera and Jim's smile quickly leaves his face and he cracks the knuckles on his fingers and responds, "Force it is then."


	2. HandCuffs

**Chapter Two**

I moaned from the tapping sun-light against my face. I blinked, shut my eyes and blinked again as feeling slowly reaches back to my fingers and toes. I roll over and hug my sore legs to my chest. Something about the atmosphere didn't feel right. The room was too cold and I lay on something hard.

Cautiously, I open my eyes and panic swells inside me. I'm in an odd empty dark room the only light coming from a small sky light above me. A steel door sat across from where I lay, on the cement walls. Next to me was a white drain pipe that went into the wall. Awareness came in a flash, this was not within my comfort zone, this was strange and in some ways frightening. What had happened - how had I got here – where am I...? So many thoughts scrambled themselves to the surface in panic that a thin film of perspiration began to form on my brow and upper lip. Fear was setting in and there was nothing I could do to stop it, no comforting words or thoughts, nothing reassuring came to mind.

Suddenly the door swings open, screeching, and a man in a dark uniform with fiery red hair comes through. I stand quickly, surprised to find my legs struggle to do the task.

"Thought you might be hungry," He says as he carries a bowl of rice over towards me. I flinch backwards.

"Who *are* you?" I ask and he ignores me by setting the bowl by my feet. "Where am I?"

He starts to walk away but stops at the door. "I don't understand," he says and turns towards me, his hand still on the handle. "Why they want you and that friend of yours. We need someone strong and confident but your nothing but a spineless twig." Confusion surrounds me as he speaks and takes his hand off the handle, walking towards me.

"You'll be dead by morning." With his last words, panic settles in and before I know it, I'm slapping him.

He smiles as he wipes the blood from his lips and says, "Then again, I've been wrong before." Then without another word he cuffs my wrist to the drainpipe with the handcuffs kept in his belt and leaves.

It was hours till my memories came flooding back. The coffee shop, Jim punching Shiera out cold, the butt of Sam's gun coming towards my face, and then blackness.

I rub my wrist as it cuts and chaffs against the cuffs when the door opens again. I make myself look strong so when the man with the red hair came in he would know that I wasn't scared of him. A man with dark brown hair cut closely to his scalp holding open a folder came in, instead. But a guard stood at the open door.

He walks softly in the room and reads from the folder, "Hanna Grace Morgan, 28, mother in jail, father deceased. Owner of a bookstore in Northern Manhattan, only known regular acquaintance is Shiera Bells-"

"How do you know that?" I interrupt and he looks up from the folder. His dull blue eyes stare at me and a shiver runs down my spine. He looks back down and reads out loud.

"Hanna Morgan shows no sign of psychological problems and by all accounts is emotionally stable. However, she is irritable and tends to react quickly to apparent threats. Her reactions are…at best futile." He clears his throat, "Well, we can fix that."

"What are you talking about? Where's Shiera? What is going on?!" I scream and go to stand up but the handcuffs pull me back down to the cement floor.

"Sorry about that Miss Morgan, the guard who was in here thought it best. But we don't need the cuffs anymore, do we?" He looks over to the guard by the door and says, "Well? Aren't you going to un-cuff her?" The guard hesitates but soon comes over and releases my wrist from the drainpipe.

"What is going on? Who are you? Where is Shiera?" I speak sternly as I rub my bruised wrist.

He sighs and says as he tucks the folder under his arm, "Shiera is fine. No need to worry."

"Don't you dare touch a hair on her head, asshole!" I scream at him though sudden sobs. I've had enough of this. For all I know, they killed her and I'm next.

"Hanna." He draws out my name, almost disappointingly, but then he smiles. "You'll be a perfect candidate for our…Division." *What the hell?* He goes to walk out of the room but I grab his arm.

"What is going on? Where is Shiera? Where am I?! Please just let us go!" I yell and he rips his arm from my grasp. Before I can breathe he slaps me hard against the face and yells at the guard to cuff me back to drainpipe.

He looks out of breath as he stands next to the door ready to swing it shut. But before he does he takes a long breathy sigh and says,

"Welcome to Hydra, Miss Morgan." Then with that the door slams closed, shaking the cement walls around it.


	3. Experiments!

**Chapter Three**

**I hear a shuffle of hurried feet come **towards the door. It swings open and the guard with the fiery red hair stands in the doorway holding grey scrubs.

"Put them on." He says, as he throws the scrubs at my feet and I look at the floor. Hoping he doesn't see the stained tear streaks on my cheeks.

"I said. Put. Them. On." He says harsher this time and I look up.

"I can't," I tell him as I shake my bruised handcuffed wrist against the steel pipe, making a clashing ringing sound fill the room. He rolls his eyes and walks up to me and bends down so we're eye level.

"If you try anything I'll kill you." He threatened nonchalantly almost as if this sentence was an everyday phrase for him. My heart stopped, sweat beaded down my forehead and my hands shook like firecrackers. I look up at his face. I could see his swampy green eyes from the glare of the skylight. I take a deep breath and force a small smile onto my lips and say,

"I wouldn't expect anything less."

He almost laughs as he un-cuffs my wrist,

"You have five minutes to get dressed."

Six minutes later, I'm dressed in cold grey scrubs as three guards lead me from the room and down a hallway with white walls and bright lights that hang from the ceiling. It reminds me of the time when I was eight and broke my arm. It was after school and my mom was late picking me up. So as any logical eight year old would do, I waited by playing on the monkey bars on the school playground. I was halfway across when my hand slipped and I fell, landing arm first. I was crying on the floor for an half an hour before my mom found me and took me to the hospital.

A nurse there took me down a hallway with the same white walls and luminescent lights as the ones in the hallway I'm walking down now. I can only remember feeling so scared. Just like now. Only then I was walking down a corridor to get my arm wrapped up and fixed and now I could be walking towards death.

We follow the red haired guard down three more white hallways before we pass through some grey doors and into another hallway with orange and blue tiles. That's when I see her at the other end of the hallway. I almost didn't recognize her with her silky blonde hair now tangled in every direction. Her blue eyes swollen red from crying and her designer clothes exchanged for a matching grey scrubs to mine but she was still the same girl. Still the same girl I met eight years ago.

"Shiera!" I shriek at her. She was okay! It was like the world lifted slightly from my shoulders and I smile so big when I see her look up from her shoes and up at me. Her eyes grow wide and she yells my name at me. The guards don't say a word but only grab harshly onto our shoulders as they push us to keep moving towards two big white doors. But I barely notice as I keep yelling,

"Are you okay?"

Tears come to her eyes as she says, "I'm fine." I smile. "What about you, why are you hurt?!"

Before I get to answer, I'm shoved through the doors and I blink from the glaring bright lights in the room. I look around me and see what looked like some sort of surgical room. There were scalpels and doctor utensils between two hospital beds with stained pillows. I step back when I see four doctors at the end of the room. Shiera is pushed in behind me and I take my focus off the doctors and run to hug her.

We hugged for two seconds before the guards rip us apart and snap at the doctors.

"Where do we put them?" They snap and the tallest of the doctors say to put us on the beds. Panic explodes from my chest and I scream. But my mouth isn't open and I realize that I'm not the one screaming but instead it's Shiera as she's picked up and shoved onto the bed. I watch as she kicks and yells as she's strapped to the bed.

My attention tears away from her when I'm picked up next.

"What are doing! What's happening! No! Let go of me!" Before I know it, I'm strapped in as well and I turn my head towards the bed next to me that held Shiera. She's crying and my heart breaks. She was like my little sister, I'm supposed to protect her and yet I let this happen.

"We're going to be alright, okay?" I reassure and she says,

"Promise?" Her voice was so fragile, like a child who's life has been pulled apart.

I smile as tears slide down my cheek,

"I promise." I say but even I, didn't believe the words I was saying.

Then suddenly a shower curtain was pulled between us and I couldn't see her anymore. I panicked and tried to rip my arms from the restraints and a doctor with silver glasses comes up to me and she says,

"I am deeply sorry that I have to do this." She seemed kind but my heart stopped.

"What are you going to do?" I ask shakily but then a piercing agonizing scream fills the room and I look over at the shower curtain that hid Shiera.

"What are you guys doing to her? What's happening? Please." I begged and the woman doctor almost seemed sincerely worried and she says,

"I'm sorry but for the first few parts of the experiment-"

"What. experiment?!" I interrupt but she just continues,

"for the first few parts of the experiment we can't use anesthetics, so I'm afraid you'll have to be awake. I am so sorry."

I almost believed her that she cared but that was before she started cutting open my stomach with scalpel. I scream and cry and even begged to give her anything to make her stop. But she didn't. I blacked out to the bloodcurling screams of my best friend.


End file.
